Hiroshima Page #3

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it belongs to United States Air Corps,

and number two,

I'm the organisation commander,

I can do anything I want with any one

of those airplanes, including yours!

He shut up.

That was the only discussion.

Dismissed!

For most citizens of Hiroshima,

5th August was uneventful.

As the day closed,

people prepared themselves

for more air raid sirens,

and more disturbed sleep.

Dr Hida was still on duty

after a busy day.

He remembers the 5th quite clearly.

I returned to the hospital around 8 pm.

An officer on night shift

came and told me

that four guests from Manchuria

were in Hiroshima.

They were high-ranking army doctors.

I was told to look after them.

Eventually I put everybody to bed,

and then I lay down beside them.

Then, in the middle of the night,

an old man from the village

come on his bicycle to see me.

There weren't any doctors

where he lived,

they were all at the Front.

Thinking it couldn't be helped,

I went with him,

in the middle of the night.

I was very drunk.

There were no cars at that time,

and so I sat on the back

of the old man's bicycle.

That is how I survived.

Okay, there are three planes

involved in the mission.

That night,

in the last minutes before departure,

there was a final briefing for all the crews

who were heading to Hiroshima.

There are three planes

involved in the mission.

Number one, the Enola Gay,

carrying the bomb.

Number two, the Great Artiste,

carrying recording equipment.

Number three,

the Necessary Evil,

we were the photographic ship.

Do yourjobs, obey orders,

don't cut corners.

That is all.

The mission was so secret,

Tibbets was given suicide pills,

in case they fell into Japanese hands.

That evening,

when I came out the mess hall,

the Flight Surgeon gave me the pills.

He told me what they were.

I hope you don't need them,

but, he said, if you do,

they're cyanide.

He said, here, if you need them,

one for each man of the crew.

He said, you'll never know anything,

within six minutes, you're gone.

You never feel anything different,

you never feel a thing.

And I told the guys outside the airplane,

before we climbed up,

I'll give any one of you the pill,

if you want the pill.

And no one said anything,

but Captain Parsons, he said,

I'd like to have one.

And I understood his position,

because he knew more technical stuff

about that bomb than anybody.

When we got to the Enola Gay,

that was our first big surprise,

because we had,

there were lights all over the place,

And this was not like

any mission we'd ever flown.

You know, this was like

a Hollywood premiere!

Photographers and film crew

had been ordered

to record the historic mission.

We had climbed into the airplanes,

in order to start the engines,

and there were people all around,

there were clegg lights right there,

right in front of the number two engine.

And I couldn't do anything

with that thing there,

so I opened the window, stuck my head out,

I said, stand back!

Move out of the way!

But I just waved my hand like that,

and some guy said,

wave at us!

So I waved,

and that's what you got.

It was another day,

it was another morning up.

And that was it.

It was my responsibility.

Dimples eight two to North Tinian tower.

Taxi out and take off instructions.

Dimples two eight.

The bomb weighed more than four tons,

making take off even

more dangerous than usual.

15 seconds to go!

The take off I remember, the most

dangerous part of flying is in take off.

Five seconds! Get ready!

Everyone on board, I'm sure,

felt the same way I did,

waiting for it to lift off.

And it seemed like

it took an inordinate amount of time.

I wanted to hold

the airplane on the ground,

to get all the air flight over

the tail that I could get.

I held it down

longer than what Bob,

used to see an airplane

take off at 140, 145 miles an hour,

I held it down till

I was over 150 miles an hour.

He reached for the yoke,

tried to pull it back to...

Pull it back! Now!

Get your damn hands off this yoke!

I'm flying this airplane,

and he pulled back right quick.

But eventually it lifted off,

an we didn't crash at the end

of the runway, so we were off.

Fifteen minutes after take off,

with the plane still at low altitude,

Parsons was ready

to assemble the bomb.

We're starting!

Dimples Eight two to North Tinian tower.

Judge going to work.

I repeat, judge going to work.

It's about, eighty-eight inches wide

around the outside,

to the back end of the weapon,

which had those big fins.

Very cramped quarters,

you had to squat down in order to

peer into the back end of this bomb,

and that's the position that Parsons took,

is to work inside these fins.

They all knew a mistake

would jeopardise the entire mission.

Unscrewing breech!

Inserting charges!

Parsons would then take the powder charges,

about the size of a loaf of bread.

He would put those in there,

one at a time,

then he'd pick up the breech block,

put it into where it was supposed to go

turn it, just make the seal.

Inserting breech!

Each one of these manoeuvres

he would check off on his check off list,

to ensure that he had made no mistakes.

And retuning home!

Check!

Two hours later, the Enola Gay

met up with the scientific

and photographic planes.

They were now

three hours from Hiroshima.

Dawn was breaking, and it's now

just a beautiful, beautiful morning.

We're about 9,000 feet at that time.

And we all remarked about

what a beautiful sunrise it was,

that particular morning.

Dick Jepson, Parson's assistant,

had one task left,

to arm the bomb.

Before the plane went to altitude,

I had to climb into the bomb bay,

and remove these three green plugs,

and replace them

with three arming plugs,

which enabled the fusing circuit to

fire the weapon, causing it to detonate.

And the only time

I felt really nervous on this mission,

was the time when I inserted

these red plugs into the bomb.

The bomb was now armed and live.

After they were in place,

I breathed a sigh of relief,

because nothing had happened

at this point in time.

Evidently, with the action of replacing

these plugs, or switching these plugs,

I became the last person

to put a hand on this bomb.

I hadn't realised that at the time.

We're at 30,000 feet.

Ahead of the Enola Gay,

another B-29 was already flying

over Hiroshima, checking the weather.

It triggered an alert.

There was an air raid warning.

It was the type that warned

that a raid was a possibility.

As the people waited

in air raid shelters,

the weather plane reported its findings

to the Enola Gay by coded message.

Cloud cover less than

three tenths at all altitudes.

Advice:
bomb primary.

It's Hiroshima!

The weather plane now headed away.

For a time, it seemed

that the threat had passed.

About 30 minutes later

they sounded the all clear.

It meant there was not

going to be an air raid,

so everyone went about their business,

going to offices and factories.

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